


Forgetting Martin Nečas

by caixa



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2018 IIHF World Junior Championship, Angst, Carolina Hurricanes, Cuddling, Drifting Apart, M/M, Pining, Prospects Camp, Sad Rookie Breakup, World Juniors, a tiny bit of non-explicit smut, in one scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caixa/pseuds/caixa
Summary: You can hide so much behind ‘bro’





	Forgetting Martin Nečas

**Author's Note:**

> It sucks that Finland lost the quarter final to Czech Republic, okay? Let me mourn in my own way, like writing a rambling little melancholy drabble of some talented and cute Canes prospects.

 

“You guys look like two color versions of the same Ken doll,” someone says during the Carolina Hurricanes prospects camp.

Janne’s ice blue eyes glance at Martin and Martin’s chocolate gaze darts at Janne, the same amused closed-mouth smile rippling on the two pairs of lips.

“See!” they continue, pointing at the two of them, and the Finn and the Czech burst into two identically exhilarated laughters, both of them bending over forward from the force of the guffaws.

After that, it’s hard to stop laughing.

 

They hit it off on the ice, but it doesn’t take long to notice it also carries off the ice.

It’s a happy coincidence that they share a room, because they share so much else already: European origins, position as center forwards, sense of humor, ambition. They even dress alike (well, since when young hockey players don’t), carry the same kind of pendant on a same kind of chain around their necks.

They have traveled different routes to where they are now, Martin a fresh draft pick, Janne a year older, back at the camp after skating a grinding but productive year with the London Knights. They don’t talk that much, Finnish and Czech being two totally different languages, and Martin’s grasp of English limited to simple phrases to survive in hockey and everyday life.

But, when you’re a physical guy, as thoroughbred aspiring professional athletes are, it’s easy to establish a friendship by means beyond spoken language. Looks, smiles, gestures. Spotting for each other at the gym, cheering or laughing at each other’s attempts at clean pull-ups, keeping an eye at each other’s results through the series of physical tests.

Winning together. Losing together. Competing against each other, measuring speed and strength and skill and endurance, learning off each other by looking and by doing.

Slaps, pats, facewash pranks. Wrestling, ruffling hair, nudging elbows, rubbing shoulders.

Cuddling. Abolishing fatigue, homesickness and insecurities by snuggling close when the nights drag out dark, long and boring.

Celly hugs. Greeting hugs. Comforting hugs.

Bro hugs.

You can hide so much behind ‘bro’.

 

Two versions of a Ken doll. It’s meant to be a chirp but Janne is secretly flattered.

If he’s very honest, a bit turned on, too, when they get that far.

 

Martin claims to know his beers, and Janne is eager to indulge in his expertise. Someone passes as a 21-year-old, and smuggles in a good collection of samples of the American artisan brewery industry and the finest Prague imports.

At some point they are very drunk, very alone in their very room, and very much kissing. Very naked, too, under Janne’s blanket. Nothing gets inserted anywhere but they are both very, very hard, and Janne grinds down on the younger boy, and Martin squirms under him, and the silver pendants get entangled and they giggle at it, wet and sloppy. They have to lie down nose to nose in the mess they’re not going to talk about in the morning, trying to stop their hands from shaking so that they can untangle the chains.

The room will be marked theirs forever.

You can hide so much behind ‘bro’.

 

Janne flies under the radar. He is no Julien Gauthier or Martin Necas, no hype around him, just another yesteryear’s second-round pick trying to make it.

He surprises everyone when he stays through the drops, makes it to the opening night roster and skates on the ice through the gate, a real Carolina Hurricane, his name and number echoing through the PA of the arena.

Martin plays eventually in one Canes game and gets sent on loan to Brno. They exchange emotional bro selfies on Instagram and swear to keep in touch.

 

Janne is kept in Raleigh a week longer before being assigned to AHL.

Keeping in touch – well. There are cheerfully chirping Instagram comments. There are messages, mushy IMU-selfies, between Carolina and Europe, often at inconvenient hours for both.

There are a couple of lapses in control, moments of raw bro emotion flowing over, resulting in intimate photos both tell each other to delete the next day.

By the time fall really turns into winter, messages fade out to a stop. Janne shrugs at the first lack of response, the time zones make hours inconvenient for both of them.

But it’s so hard to send the second first message in a row, and Janne notices his pride gets in the way. It’s humiliating to see two message bubbles on top of each other on your side of the screen, if it’s not a correction sent in the middle of a fast-moving conversation.

Besides, there’s hockey to be played. And how much can you expect from a drunk summer camp fling, anyway?

You can read so much into ‘bro’ that isn’t there after all.

 

After Christmas Martin returns to the States. This time up north, to play for his country in Buffalo. Janne has the same mission, only a shorter flight away.

Neither expects a contact from the other during the junior worlds, really – in tournaments like these, teams tend to curl inwards, towards their teammates, towards their countrymen, because the chance to build up spirit and togetherness is as crucial as it is brief.

 

Martin is an absolute power in the Czech squad, hell, in the whole tournament. Janne – not so much.

They meet in the quarterfinals. Martin is fast, he is agile and precise.

The game advances to shootout. Martin is up third in his team, one shot scored before him, and gets the puck in.

Janne is up after him, and doesn’t. The game ends in exhilarated red cheer and blue – well, blues, to put it kindly.

 

“You guys look like two color versions of the same Ken doll,” someone said in the summer, during the camp, millions of years ago, in another galaxy.

That kind of notion may make you read too much into a brief summer fling, especially when your senses and hormones and expectations are heightened because of the ever-present excitement of competition, the pressure of giving your all because the chance may be your last.

Like it ever is, really. They are no plastic dolls: they are young and alive, fast men in a fast-moving world, and the next summer will be there before anyone notices. Each game, in Charlotte or Brno, in Buffalo or PyeongChang or Copenhagen, is a step closer to another pre-season in Raleigh.

Another bro hug.

Maybe it’s them again, the blonde and brunette Ken dolls, but neither of them would bet on it.

Because, in the end, they are not the ones who bet; they are the ones on the line, doing the work, making the result for others to bet on.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feedback most appreciated! Either here or on pob-lwc-caixa.tumblr.com (main blog) or badhockeymom.tumblr.com (hockey sideblog).


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